Tyson Foods Donates Plane to UA
by February 17, 2003 12:00 am 81 views
Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale on Feb. 5 gave a nine-passenger turboprop airplane to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
The 1989 King Air B200 is worth an estimated $1.8 million. The university said the plane will be counted as a gift to its Campaign for the Twenty-First Century, a fund drive to raise $900 million in private gift support by June 30, 2005.
As of Dec. 31, the campaign had raised $676.4 million, or 75 percent of the goal.
The UA had been using a 1977 Turbo Commander, a six-passenger turboprop owned by the Razorback Foundation, but the plane’s tail section had been damaged during a flight earlier this fall. The King Air B200 is more spacious, comfortable and quiet than the Turbo Commander, said UA pilot Ken Haxel.
Tyson got the King Air during its acquisition of IBP Inc., at the time the nation’s largest beef and pork producer.
The King Air, to be flown by the university’s two pilots, will transport administrators, faculty and staff on university business to meetings involving fund-raising, intercollegiate athletics, student recruitment, professional meetings and special events, the university said.